Rogue Alliance

FIFTY-EIGHT



Shyla realized she had been holding her breath and released it in one slow whoosh of air, wishing the overwhelming sense of dread would float out of her body with it. No such luck.

The docks were already cloaked in fog. She could taste it in the back of her throat; an odd mix of salty seawater and the fumes of the city squalor.

In street clothes, she crouched down on an empty boat, keeping an eye and ear out for any signs from the rest of the team that was spread out around the grounds. Eli had sent her a sizeable group of men and women to back her up.

This is it, she thought. They were finally going to nail Victor Champlain. She wasn’t nearly as thrilled with the concept as she’d always imagined she would be. It wasn’t that she didn’t want the closure, the justice. She did, but it didn’t feel nearly as rewarding as she had anticipated.

Then again, the deal was yet to go down. A lot could happen over the course of the next half hour. With that thought in mind, she gripped her weapon with sweaty palms.

*



The docks were eerily silent as the cargo ship slipped through the waters of the port. Shyla could see there were three men perched at the bow, scanning the scene.

As the ship docked, Victor, Brennan, and three of his men seemed to appear out of nowhere from the far east side of the shipyard. As if by magic, the fog presented the small group. Brennan was tense. She could see it in the way he walked and held his head. Her heart was with him.

He paused and gave a quick look around. Could he feel her presence? His senses were, after all, more astute than everyone else’s. After a moment, he moved forward, joining Victor’s crew.

She imagined her team in their stations, just waiting for her to give the signal. She wouldn’t until Victor had made the transaction.

Victor and his men stopped halfway down the dock. He was giving orders. Then he left them there and walked the rest of the way by himself. Shyla was too far away to hear the interaction and the heavy fog made visibility tough. She had expected as much, which is why she had insisted on making the boat her station. Eli’s research had shown where the boat would dock and she’d chosen another close by.

Information wasn’t completely accurate. The boat docked farther down than she had imagined. Now, she was between Brennan and Victors men, and Victor and the ship. Her entire team would have to take down Victor’s men at the end of the dock before they could get down to Victor and the ship. Immediately, she saw that as soon as she called the order, she’d have to bolt from her position and try to secure Victor for the arrest. There would be a period of time between when her team could secure the men at the end of the dock and help her at the other end. She’d be on her own against four or five men. Those weren’t good odds, but she wasn’t about to call off the raid. They had come this far. Victor was going down.

Her gut clenched as Victor drew closer to her boat and walked past it, towards his destination. It was the first time she’d seen him since she arrested him. Her throat tightened. She could still feel the way her scarf had cut into her flesh and squeezed of her airway when he had strangled her, and it was hard to resist the temptation to take in a sudden gulp of air.

Quietly, slowly, she repositioned herself to optimize her view. Victor reached the boat. A tall, gangly man stood at the edge looking down. They exchanged greetings. She could hear only a murmur.

Victor climbed aboard. The three men at the bow stood on vigilant guard as he and the captain disappeared into the cargo space. Twenty long, arduous minutes passed. Shyla’s muscles were cramping as she remained in her station, hunched, wary, and watchful.

She saw the three men leave their posts. Something was up. Unsure of how Victor planned to get his shipment out of port, she looked back down the docks. Brennan was making his way down. Victor must have contacted him. It was time. She couldn’t let Brennan make it down before she’d made her move.

With a push of the button on her two-way-radio, she spoke quickly and quietly. “The exchange has been made. I’m going in. Go, go, go.”

In one swift motion, she tucked her radio onto her belt clip and leaped over the bow of the boat she’d been hiding in. With a solid thud, she hit the dock running. She didn’t look back, but she suddenly heard shouting and she imagined her team rushing Victor’s men. A gun shot rang out, followed by another. She automatically hunched her shoulders defensively as she ran forward, praying for Brennan’s safety.

There was a ruckus on the boat as the men on board began to realize that things were not progressing as planned.

“It’s the police,” she heard the captain shout, “what the f*ck, Victor?”

She was almost to the ship when Victor and two other men jumped down from the boat. Victor almost lost his footing. He stood crouched and ready to run. The other men were already scrambling; one leaped to another boat on the other side, and the other was sprinting straight toward her.

“Stop, Police!” she shouted, pointing her gun directly at Victor.

The man running towards her stopped dead in his tracks, wild-eyed and panicked. The other man was long gone, hopping from boat to boat into the murk of the fog. Victor was still as a statue, his stare cold and icy and boring into her with hate that was tangible.

It was all happening so fast. The commotion behind her was only background music filled with shouting and chaos.

Boot steps running hard and fast down the long length of the dock were closing in quickly behind her and she knew that Brennan was closing in fast.

The man that had been running toward her decided he had no other options. She saw the realization pass over his features a split second before he charged her. She took her sight off Victor and prepared to shoot her attacker and Victor made his decision. With almost a smirk on his face, he stood straight, reached behind his back and pulled out a revolver.

The reverberating echo of two shots fired one after the other pierced her ears just as the man leaped for her. His body slumped to the ground. Her shot had hit him in the center of his chest. The blood was already spreading like an oil spill across the breadth of his chest as he lay, dying, a few feet away from her.

Looking up, she knew she needed to know where the other shot had come from, and where it had ended. Victor was still standing in the same place, but the look on his face was one of shock. His gun dangled from his limp fingers. He dropped it and fell to his knees, staring just behind Shyla with a small entrance point at the center of his throat, blood seeping out of the wound in a gruesome river.

She didn’t need to look to know that Brennan was behind her. He had shot Victor before he could shoot her.

Victor blinked and a gurgling sound escaped when he opened his mouth. He fell face forward.

She turned. Brennan was standing with his gun still aimed at Victor, as if he was frozen there for eternity. His face was ghost white, but his expression was hard.

“Brennan,” she choked out on a sob.

He turned to her and seemed to shake out of his trance.

“Shyla,” he said in a gruff tone, reaching out and pulling her to his chest violently, “I thought he had shot you. I’m so glad you’re okay.”

She was clung to him, her whole body shaking with adrenaline.

“I’m okay,” she said, “it’s over. It’s over.”

There was shouting and what sounded like a hundred footsteps as the team closed in around them. Shyla closed her eyes and shut them out.

Brennan held her tight, rubbing her back in vigorous motions.

“It’s not over, baby. It’s finally just begun.”